


Davenport

by PandoraTheExplorer



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, focuses on the relationship between lucretia and davenport, he's basically lucretia's dad yall, what happened in the gap between the voidfishing and the BoB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25817866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandoraTheExplorer/pseuds/PandoraTheExplorer
Summary: Your name is Davenport.You live on a flying ship piloted by a young woman who you feel like you should know. She's on a quest to do...something. Every time she tries to tell you her plans, strange static fills your ears. Whatever this woman is trying to do, you just wish she would stay safe.You also wish you could remember her name.
Relationships: Davenport & The Director | Lucretia
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	Davenport

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this in early 2019. I really got into TAZ in late 2018 and wrote three fics that I didn't have the confidence to post. This is actually the only one that I finished, but the others also have a fair chunk written. Maybe I'll post them later.

Your name is Davenport.

~

Sometimes, when the static is quieter, you let your mind wander.

You had a father, you think, and a mother. And there was also an uncle who took you fishing at the lake and a grandmother who gave you bitter chocolates. Your parents liked to take you to work with them when you were younger. They were very smart. They had to be, if they wanted to be th tp engnrs f sdlla sdjkv jkdoi dlfkjakljfdfkl kjsdfsdaoewaei wioeios

~

Your name is Davenport.

~

As far back as you can remember, (which isn’t very far, if you are to be honest) you have been accompanied by a young woman. You think she has told you her name dozens of times, but you can never remember what it is. She seems to be human, a young one at that, though she acts with a maturity of someone thrust into adulthood, although you don’t know how you can tell. The woman takes good care of you-often she would make the both of you tea and ramble on about her day and ask you about yours. Most of the time, your name is the only answer you can provide, but she still nods along like she understands you completely.

She drives you around on a ship in the sky. You have no idea how she got this ship, and when she tries to tell you all you hear is static. It’s a very big ship, with a spacious living room and kitchen, and a deck that provided a breathtaking view of the scenery around the ship. What you don’t understand is why there are seven bedrooms. The woman occupies one and you occupy another, but between the two of you are five uninhabited rooms that the woman had locked after you asked her about them the first time and has since refused to open. It isn’t right, you think, for just the two of you to live on this ship. There should be five more people. Wher ws ak n p las kdjfl klsdaiodsfj jkjdskafhia hi dhsicjkcjx halhaoewiokl jkckjlznsd

~

Your name is Davenport

~

As kind as the woman is of you, you can tell, even with the static in your head that says you should know nothing about the woman, that you make her sad. The signs are miniscule, and you aren’t even sure how you can pick up on them-you’ve only known her for about a year, after all. Whenever you reply to her remarks with your name, the soft smile on her face falters for a fraction of a second. When she thinks your back is turned, the look on her face turns from neutral to what looks like pity. Sometimes, when the static gets especially unbearable and the woman tries to calm you down, you can tell she’s holding back tears.

One night the woman does shed tears. You pass by the woman’s lab (she says it’s her lab for studying magic, but for some reason you always picture an older human man in blue clothes working in a lab like this) on your way to the deck to watch stars. At first, you think the sound coming from the lab is just the creaking of a floorboard or an unstable chair, but as you press your ear to the door, you realize it’s the woman, and she’s doing a poor job of hiding her sobs. You gently push open the door of the lab. The woman sees you and frantically wipes away her tears before forcing a small smile onto her face.

“Hello, Davenport,” she says. “It’s late. Was there something you needed?”

“Davenport,” you say, because that’s all you can manage. The woman chokes back a sob when she hears you. Another tear slides down her cheek.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says, her voice wavering, “I’m so sorry. I can’t understand you.”

Frustrated, you run to the kitchen and manage to find a box of tissues on one of the counters (sitting on top of a particularly greasy spatter that’s long since been cleaned up of stew made by a pair of twin elves that you don’t remember anymore) and make your way back to the lab. The woman gives you a sad smile and collapses back on her desk, new tears flowing from her face.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps between sobs, “I’m so sorry, Davenport. I never wanted this to happen. I just didn’t want to see all of you upset anymore. I didn’t want you to end up-to end up like this!”

Frankly, you have no idea what she’s talking about. What did you end up like? You don’t remember being anything else before. The woman knew more than you-that’s a given, but what, exactly, did she know? Was it possible she knows more about you than you do?

You hug her leg, because that’s as high as you can reach. It breaks your heart to see her upset like this, and you don’t know why. You want to help the woman. You want to make her happy and help her grow and protect her from anything in the world that might hurt her. After a moment, she kneels down to hug you back.

She whispers more apologies in your ear. She says that she hurt you, even though you don’t recall being hurt. She says that she hurt your family, even though you are almost sure that she’s never met your parents before. She says she had to do what she did, and when you ask her what she did, all that comes out of your mouth is your name.

After that, you are distracted from the woman’s words by the static in your ear. It takes you a while to notice that the static is coming from the woman. You hate the static, and you want to run, to jump off this ship-anything to get away from this sound. But you can hear the woman’s sobs as well as the loud fuzz that filled the gaps between them. The woman needs you. You can’t leave now, no matter how loud the static gets.

So you stay in the woman’s embrace, stroking her hair and humming a song you don’t remember as the static from the woman’s mouth drowns out your thoughts. And after what seems like hours, when the woman has stopped rambling and the static had stopped tearing at your mind, she lets out a soft yawn.

You tug at her sleeve and pull her to your room. Your bed is wide, but it’s short since it’s made for a gnome like you. The woman’s feet hang off the end when she lies down. But then she curls up against you with what seems like decades of practice, and your bed feels empty-emptier than it had been when you were the only one sleeping in it.

In fact, you think if everyone curls up the way the woman does, this bed can fit five more people on it.

~

Your name is Davenport.

~

Months after the woman stumbles back to the ship with a white wooden staff and several minor injuries, she brings two humans on the ship. She introduces them to you as Lucas and Maureen Miller, and for some reason their names are easier to remember than the woman’s. Lucas seems to be a few years younger than the woman and Maureen is a few decades older-Lucas’s mother, if you had to guess. They marvel at the ship’s design and take sketches of its engine and its controls. Maureen tries to talk to you, and you reply with your name. That prompts Lucas to eye you suspiciously and start asking you about things that bring static to your ears.

“Davenport,” the woman says just as you think you are about to run out of the room to get away from the static, “Why don’t you go fetch the tea I put on the stove?”

You nod and scurry to the kitchen, grateful for your escape from that conversation. Later, you pat the woman on her knee and manage two new words that you usually can’t say.

“Thank you.”

The woman smiles and pats your shoulder in return. As you turn to leave, you can hear her mutter under her breath.

“You have nothing to thank me for, Captain.”

~

Your name is Davenport.

~

A few months after befriending the Millers, the woman flies the ship onto a floating building in the sky. She leads you to Maureen and Lucas, and informs you that you will be staying with them for a while.

“Davenport,” you say, tugging at her sleeve. You want to say something, but you can’t remember what. Whatever the woman needs to do, she can take you along. She’s always taken you with her, hasn’t she?

“Take care, Davenport,” says the woman as she bends to hug you. She is shaking, you realize. You have never seen the woman so afraid before. You’d always thought her powerful enough to protect you from anything. What could make her this afraid?

“When will you be back?” asks Maureen.

“In a few days,” the woman says, and then hesitates. “Maybe a few weeks.” She pauses again. “I don’t know,” she admits, “If don’t come back, take care of Davenport for me, alright?”

Maureen and Lucas try to keep the woman from going, but she insists that she has to go for a reason that brings static to your ears. As she takes off in a smaller ship that Maureen provides her, you realize that you don’t even remember the woman’s name.

~

Your name is Davenport.

~

Weeks later, when you are starting to believe that the woman will never come back, Lucas gets a call on his stone of farspeech and Maureen flies the Miller Lab over the Felicity Wilds. The moment the woman limps out of the ship that she was picked up in, you tackle her in a hug. Almost a minute passes before you release the woman from your arms and see the full of what had happened to her in the weeks away from you.

You see that she’s bleeding. There are bandages wrapped around some wounds already that she says were from a kind traveller that happened across her by coincidence. She leans heavily on Maureen when walks, as if at any moment she is going to lose the will to stay standing and collapse and never get up again. You see the wrinkles on her hands and around her eyes and realize that the woman had aged about twenty years in three weeks. You think that in human years, she would be about your age now.

You visit her in the med bay a few hours later after Maureen and Lucas have treated her injuries. She is sleeping peacefully-possibly for the first time since she left. You used to think the woman looked younger in her sleep. Now, instead of a fresh-faced child, you stare into the face of a woman worn down by years that had never transpired.

It isn’t fair, you think. Neither the woman nor the Millers had told you anything about what happened the past weeks, but even a static-hindered amnesiac can put two and two together and realize the suffering the woman must have gone through. She shouldn’t have had to suffer alone. You should have been there for her, like you always have.

Wait.

Like you always have? You’ve only known the woman for a few years. She is important to you, of course-perhaps the most important person you have in the world-but you couldn’t have always been there for her.

Before you can try to remember more of your past, Lucas comes into the med bay with a clipboard and begins checking the numbers on the machines around the woman’s bed. He sees you sitting at the woman’s side and sighs.

“She’s not waking up for another couple of hours,” Lucas says, “We have her on, like, six different painkillers right now. You should get to sleep. It’s one in the morning.”

You shake your head. “I can’t,” you manage.

Lucas shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says, writing more things on his clipboard. When he puts his pen back into his pocket, you think he’s going to leave. Instead, he pulls a chair next to you and sits.

There is a long pause as the two of you silently watch the rise and fall of the woman’s chest. Then Lucas turns to you and asks, “What is your relationship with Lucretia?”

Lucretia. Of course. The woman’s name is Lucretia. You wonder to yourself how you could have forgotten her name-she must have told you her name hundreds of times by now. As for your relationship, you love her, of course. You’d like to think that the love in your eyes when you look at Lucretia is as evident as the love in Maureen’s when she sees her son.

But of course, it’s hard for you to articulate that. So you simply grin and say your name enthusiastically.

Lucas snorts. “I don’t know what I expected,” he says. The two of you continue to sit by Lucretia’s bedside in silence.

“You know,” Lucas finally says, “Lucretia was scared to go Wonderland. We warned her not to go, but she said she had to get the-“ Lucas is cut off by static, but he continues on without noticing. “My mom said she should just leave it in there since no one remembers it anyway, but Lucretia said she had to go and get it for the sake of her family.”

He turns to you. “She went to Wonderland for you, Davenport.”

Wonderland-is that where she got all those injuries? You shake your head. You would never ask Lucretia to go to a place like that. If you had to, you would take her place and die of suffering before you would subject Lucretia to her fate.

“Davenport,” you say, panicked, “ _Davenport_.”

Lucas shrugs. “The story doesn’t line up. You’re supposedly a ward Lucretia got a few years ago, but she can barely take care of herself. She refuses to tell us where you came from, and why you can only say your name on most days.” He sighs. “Lucretia loves you a lot,” he says, “She was willing to sacrifice twenty years of her life for you. I’m just curious as to why.”

You stare into your lap. Lucretia takes such good care of you. On the surface, you think that’s why you love her so much, but there’s something else, beyond the deafening static. You recall flashes of events that never happened. You remember Lucretia giggling hysterically with you over a bottle of strong wine. You remember splashing seawater in her face and chuckling as she sputtered with indignation. You remember grabbing her wrists and pulling her into your arms as she struggled against you weakly and muttered about judges and hunger.

You don’t know where these memories came from, and you don’t even know if they are real or not. You do know that these events, real or not, contribute to your fondness towards Lucretia. Perhaps it’s the same for her, too. Does Lucretia share the same blurry memories of these events with you? Is that why she cares for you so much?

Regardless of the answer, you can’t articulate any of it to Lucas. The two of you sit in silence once more, and then he stands up and picks up his clipboard.

“It’s late,” he says, “I’m heading to bed.” You wave him goodnight and he gets to the door before he turns to face you once more.

“Take care of Lucretia, Davenport,” Lucas says, “You’re not the only one who cares about her.”

~

Her name is Lucretia.

~

On days when the static dies down, you pride yourself in being able to say simple sentences. The first time you manage to say her name, her mouth spreads into a wide smile that you never grew to cherish over the years you never lived.

A year later, as she fixes a metal bracer onto your arm, she tells you that you are to call her the Director now, and not Lucretia. It’s disappointing, considering how hard it was to memorize her name, but she seems so proud of this “Director” position she’s found herself in.

You nod sadly. “Okay,” you say.

Lucretia-the Director-frowns and considers for a moment. “You can call me Lucretia,” she says finally, “but just not in front of other people, okay?” When you look at her quizzically, she says that she wants to keep her name a secret. You suppose she would keep your name a secret, too, if it’s not all you are able to say.

~

You and Lucretia help each other move things from your rooms on the ship to your new living quarters in the Bureau of Balance. Your quarters are much bigger than your room on the ship, but somehow, these new quarters feel less empty than your old room.

Lucretia explains that the door to her private quarters is fitted with charms that would only allow herself and you to enter. Your door is charmed to let you in, but she asks if she can let herself in as well. You readily agree.

~

A few weeks after Lucretia wheels a glowing glass tank into her room and finally inoculates you, you let yourself into her office with a stack of papers detailing the betrayal of a seeker known as Magic Brian. It’s late, and you hope she’s asleep. You are just planning to drop off the paperwork for her to find in the morning.

Just as you are about to leave, screams come from her bedroom. You scramble to her room and find Lucretia in bed, tossing and turning. You sigh and shake her awake. It wasn’t uncommon for Lucretia to have nightmares about Wonderland, though it did make your heart ache every time she did.

During the sleepless nights over the years when you cradled her head in your arms and stroked her hair, she would tell you of two versions of Wonderland-a place with twin elves and a magic wheel and black smoke and chess, or a place with judges towering like mountains and stone statues of her family. Tonight, she tells you about the second version. You can tell because when she goes into too much detail, static fills your ears.

You’ve grown used to the static in your mind, and pride yourself on being able to navigate your thoughts well. You aren’t bothered by the static of Lucretia’s words anymore, so you simply sit by her bedside and hold her hand and whisper words of encouragement that you can now manage.

“I’m bringing them back,” Lucretia whispers as you curl up in her bed beside her, “Taako and Magnus and Merle and Barry-I’ve found someone who would hire them and bring them to the Bureau.”

You aren’t sure who any of those people are-any memories you have about them are quickly blocked by static when you try to recall these names. Instead, you just stroke Lucretia’s hair and tell her that that would be nice.

“Won’t it be nice?” Lucretia mutters as she drifts to sleep, “Our family can almost be whole again.”

~

Your name is Davenport.

~

When you sleep, you dream of Twins and Lovers and Protectors and Peacemakers. And when you, the Wordless One, awake to an empty bed, the Lonely Journal Keeper had already left you to embrace her fate.

**Author's Note:**

> At the time I wrote this, there weren't a lot of fics exploring Davenport's thoughts after he lost his memory. I've read a couple of really good ones since then, but if anyone has any fic recommendations, please give them!
> 
> Constructive criticism and reviews are welcome!


End file.
